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In February of 2017 my mother had passed away suddenly during California's tax crisis that resulted after the 2016 general election, and needed to sell her properties and acquire one out of state before any government annex. We had a very short 3 month window of time to sell the house and acquire a property out of state, it was important that things go smoothly. My father choose Megan "Meg" Middleman, an agent of Century 21 Masters in Pasadena (license 00149188) per a referral from a friend to sell my late mother's house in South Pasadena. Because of the state of chaos of my mom's estate I was assigned attorney in fact (given power of attorney) by my father to assist in this matter and dealings with Meg.

In August we had negotiated with Meg to list and sell the property at 1428 Oneonta Knoll, South Pasadena, CA 91030 (MLS Number: 817002062). I asked Meg if she could work on a 4% commission but she insisted 5%. However in the listing contract Meg had changed it to 6%, above industry standard, without my approval. Meg had also added "correspondence" fees and other fees to the listing contract that were not standard, in addition the listing contract itself was non-standard. When the property was listed on the market, I was assaulted at work in a hit and run and several people including myself ended up in the hospital, Meg demanded that I leave the hospital against orders and choose a buyer. I did the best to make things work and met with her to review the offers that Meg had presented to me, as its now October and the window to sell was closing. However, many of offers appeared to be scams, they were well above comparable properties in the area (comps) and they had strange letters about families and photos of children that just reeked of scam to me. I spoke with my dad and against my better judgment he agreed to accept the strongest buyer. Meg contacted me a few days later in October stating that the buyer wanted a remediation (lower the cost) due to foundation problems.

I became suspicious and asked to meet this buyer in person. Meg did arrange a meeting and I met with a very strange performance artist who seemed over the top, I said nothing and asked Meg why she brought this actor. The next day Meg informed me that the "buyer" had request to cancel. I asked Meg if she had secured the 29K escrow (typical escrow is 50K in the industry) and there was no answer. Meg began to act strangely afterwards, she would not answer any of my questions and only respond with asking me to accept the second buyer in line. At this point the window to sell had passed and I spoke with my father and we decided to fire Meg for failure to perform, as Meg said she had failed to secure the escrow and for bringing in a performance actor to play a buyer (I knew the actor as I worked in the film industry for over 30 years). We asked Meg to cancel the listing, but she wanted me to talk to her broker, Cynthia "Cindi" Rubin (license 01247521). I called and wrote to Cindi but she said "no way", I reminded her that she worked for us and we are ordering her to cancel the listing, legal under CA law as the agent (Meg) failed to perform and broke several ethics codes, not to mention we had no need to sell at this point as the window to sell was well passed. However both Cindi and Meg refused and kept e-mailing me other contracts to try and trick me into signing to accept additional buyers and to pay additional fees (not standard in the industry), even requiring me to pay them if I sold the property in the future. I refused to sign those and demanded, multiple times over the phone and via e-mail, that Cindi and Meg cancel the listing, however they refused to respond to me.

At this point I had dozens of other issues in the estate of my late mom and the assault/hit and run case to deal with, not to mention I was out hundreds of thousands of dollars of my time and Meg's failure to secure the escrow/ernest money from the first fake buyer, I had to focus my time on other matters. In November I started getting strange letters and calls from lawyers, claiming I had accepted another buyer for the property. I asked to see proof and someone had sent me some forged documents accepting some buyer, I contacted Meg but there was no response but I was promptly given a cancellation of listing contract. I then received letters from a second buyer and an agent claiming they wanted to sue me for some escrow and commission he would have made. Apparently Meg had accepted another buyer against my explicit orders and even opened another escrow.

I have since then hired a real estate lawyer to deal with this issue, and he and others have stated that this is one of the most bizarre cases they have ever seen. I was also notified by the water company that someone had let the water on and flooded the street, this suspect has not been caught yet. To recap, I have lost hundreds of thousands of dollars of my time and energy, my late mom's house is in limbo right now, Meg failed to secure the escrow, and she got strangers trying to sue me for all sorts of ridiculous things and amounts. Meg is a strange person, she only talks about making more deals, taking ridiculous risks, non-standard contracts, and apparently makes money off of fees and deals, not closing.

AUTHOR: Lee - (United States)

SUBMITTED: Thursday, November 30, 2017

POSTED: Thursday, November 30, 2017

Sorry to hear about that, formal reports have been filed with South Pasadena Police Department and CA Beuro of Realestate regarding the events in this case Another item to mention was that Meg refused to use a escrow company of our choice, which confounded the problems after the attack and put more people's lives at risk The escrow company may or may not be part of the scam but I will reserve writing about it for now

AUTHOR: Mr. hardball - (United States)

SUBMITTED: Thursday, November 30, 2017

POSTED: Thursday, November 30, 2017

i’ve had some unfortunate situations with real estate agents myself let me Tell you. So many of them only want to focus on commissions in other words take a large chunk of your equity. I was going to buy house and the mortgage broker could not wait to bring lies to the table. The real estate agent wanted to list the house for what the appraisal said that I paid for. The appraisal that I paid for came in at $499,000.

Real estate agent said that I should I should list it for the appraisal amount. I told her that we were going to list the house for $534,000 she said to me you can’t list or sell house for more than the appraisal. I told her I can sell the house for million dollars if I want to if I find somebody that wants to pay that dollar amount. She said that you can’t get someone to finance more than the appraised value. I told her that I can list the house for any dollar amount that I want and if somebody’s putting $100,000 down and they’re paying $50,000 more than the appraised value the bank will still do the loan.

I told her that she is going to list the house for $534,000 and if she does not I will get a new agent. She reluctantly listed the house for $534,000 and in a few days I had signed contract and offer for $525,000. I told the buyers agent to stay away from my agent because my agent is an a*s. I also told the buyers agent if I get wind of him or his client talking to my agent I will s**t can The deal and I will sign absolutely nothing.

I made a believer out of the buyers agent but I was serious and I was going to keep my agent out of the picture oh yes my agent got her fat commission but let me tell you one thing she did not have control over the deal because I knew she was not working for me she was working for herself trying to get me to sell the house at a lower price so she could collect a fat quick commission by selling the house for way less than what it was worth .

Then the buyers agent told me that the buyer wanted a inspection I told him that the deal was off and I’m not going to play any games. I told him the only way I would sign a contract is if the buyer put $10,000 in a non-refundable escrow account and that the buyer will pay for the inspection and the buyer will never talk to me or my wife regarding any issues that they may find with the house. And that she understands that if she walks away from the deal after paying for the inspection for any reason that I keep the nonrefundable $10,000 that’s in the escrow account. I told him that because I wanted to make sure that the buyer was serious and was willing to put some skin in the game.

He told me that he didn’t know if you could pitch that to his client. He told me this in a phone call I told him that I’ve got a cold beer waiting for me have a great day and polite fully hung up on him. About an hour later he called me back told me that the client he had was willing to put $10,000 in a non-refundable escrow account and wanted to move forward with the deal that told me I had complete control of the deal and the way it was going to transpire.

I knew the buyer wanted to buy the house really bad before her husband got back from a trip out of the country because I was told that he really wanted that garage very bad we had a house that had a 6 1/2 car garage with all of the unique features the garage had for someone that was a mechanic. Everybody in the neighborhood come to me when they wanted their car repaired because I knew I had all of the needed tools and a automotive lift in the garage.

In a couple of days our agent contacted us and told us that she had a signed contract for $525,000 I told her that I felt she really wasn’t entitled to any of the commission of anything over $499,000 because she wasn’t willing to ask for that money she was willing to leave it on the table trying to close a quick easy deal. I wish I never sold the house because today it would be worth a huge amount more.

When we went to buy house she wanted us to pay for sticker but when we wanted to sell the house she wanted us to bend over and take it in the shorts that told me she was only working for herself trying to make a quick deal on both sides of the fence.

The reason I tell you the story which is true because many Real estate agents do not work for their clients they work for themselves. I believe your agent didn’t want you speak to the buyer because you have the ability to find out whether it was a scam or not that’s what many real estate agents what they want to keep the buyers and sellers away from each other that way both agents have the ability to control the deal .

A person selling their house through an agent always needs to keep control of the deal and never let your agent with the buyers agent tried to control any aspect of the deal. Never be afraid of walking away from a deal if you feel that you’re getting ready to get bent over by somebody especially the real estate agents. Because at the end of the deal they are only focusing on how much moneys going into their pocket and they try to learn from their experiences so they have better tools to help them control the deals.

I taught my real estate agent one thing real quick but she’s never in control of any deal that’s related to me or my wife. She learned very quickly that I was willing to walk away from a deal if I did not like what was going on.

Also remember anytime you hear commercials where there’s a place where you can make it your house available for a so-called buyers to make offers on some kind of a silly website be careful because it’s probably run by real estate investors trying to get your property in their possession for way less than current market value that way they could sell it and make a huge profit off of your stupidity.

Most of the time from what I’ve seen real estate agents and their brokers are worse than car sales people. I’m glad you were smart enough to pick out what was really going on behind your back.

You never know what a real estate agent will try to do behind your back trying to manipulate you and control you by bringing crazy offers to the table that make no sense that way it’s strokes out the time clock to the point where you’re willing to bend over at a later date because you know the deadlines coming quick it sounds like a manipulation tool that was used to me.

Don’t forget to contact your California state board of directors it comes to real estate. But be skeptical because maybe some of them are connected to friends that are real estate agents and brokers.

Think about this if you have a legal way to take a large chunk of someone’s equity in their house would that be appealing do you do you have the unique ability to take a large chunk of someone’s equity if you were a greedy person ? Fortunately for us the last house we saw we had an agent that listed the house for $448,000 Less than 24 hours she found a buyer that was willing to put $85,000 down and offer $452,000 which is $4000 over asking price. And he showed our agent documents of his bank account showing that he was a legitimate buyer and he put in his offer less than 24 hours after we posted the house on the MLS.

There were some things I did not like about my agent she seem to be kind of sneaky to some degree but I do have to give her credit she got the house sold to a serious buyer. She did no very soon that I was a guy that was going to keep an eye on absolutely everything and if I did not like something I would squeal like a stuck pig from hell

I made sure that she knew she was working for us she was not working for her broker I would say in most cases the agents and their brokers are in bed together to close deals and control the deals. I say fat chance when it comes to me.

Also you have to remember when you go by house and you finance it keep close eyes on your mortgage loan officers and their brokers, They will submit lies and falsify documents to get a deal to close and get the financing paper hung. I know of a particular mortgage company in Arizona they would have a huge hole in their pocket if I put my story on the Internet.

The loan officer’s broker knew that his loan officer was lying to me and not tell me the truth I made sure that the loan officer’s broker knew but I walked away from the deal because his loan officer did not tell me the truth and I found out about it.

I’m posting this because I want people to know don’t be so quick to believe that everyone in the industry is telling you the truth because lies put more money in their pocket.

And never be afraid to walk away from a deal soon as you show signs that you’re willing to walk away from the deal they will lower their prices they would lower their fees just save the deal and their commissions. And sellers should always be willing to show signs of willing to walk away from the deal. Doing that keep you in the driver seat

Never be afraid to contact your state board of realtors or should I say real estate commissioner in your state and let them know what’s going on and show them you’re Rip Off Report. Don’t be afraid to post your Rip Off Report on your social media, doing that might save somebody else a bunch of grief. It also may teach your past real estate agent a hard lesson that seems to be needed

Thanks for being willing to tell your story so many people just walk away with a strange sensation shoved up their backside